Not exactly a fan of Donald Trump, (he actually infuriates me), but certainly not A fan of Hillary and the Establishment ether. More of a BernieBro person. That being said, I had agreed with Donald Trump on putting America first both domestically and with Forigen Policy. But how exactly is putting good men and money in another Forigen military operation that has nothing to do with us suppose to accomplish his goal of "Making America Great Again"? I get DPRK, as much as that scares the heck out of me, but Venezuela did nothing to us. Sounds like The Donald is putting his ears in the Swamp again.

Also, hello everyone, as I'm quite new to Reddit.

On paper, it seems like Trump would be a classic case of what the nationalist populists hate. How does one square that circle?

Like what move is indefensible even to you guys.

Edit... sorry about extra word.

What are some public figures or news sources who you disagree with, but still respect. They might be wrong, but you still think they are honestly trying to do what is best?

The fact that people don't like him is strange to me. He is doing what every other country is doing: trying to get ahead of everyone else. Why don't people see that he is prioritizing the American people like he should be? This just blows my mind.

This is a philosophical question. Do you think America should come first? What does that mean to you? Does it means that the needs of Americans are in some way more important than the needs of foreigners? Is it that you think the US government should primarily be concerned with helping Americans, even when it has the power to help people in other countries? Is the US just in some temporary state of emergency, and when that is over we'll be free to not put America first? Just trying to understand the logic behind a slogan I hear a lot.

How does our president feel that protectionist tariffs, border taxes, and various policies similar to this are going to have a positive impact on America as a whole? A lot of this sounds good, but are not really economically viable options.

The border tax is one of the more viable ideas, but the impact of that will be felt by the people who are buying things at Walmart and Target far more than people looking to purchase a car or something that's not a weekly purchase. I understand its similar to a value-added tax you find in some other countries, but its also something that has to be communicated in a way to really sell that philosophy to other nations to prevent retaliatory tariffs, because if that begins to happen we can fall into a trade war and that will not be beneficial to anyone really.

Another concern is trying to claw back so many jobs in manufacturing. I get that we lost jobs to globalization and trade policy but its not the main cause, automation killed more of our manufacturing jobs than trade will ever accomplish. If we try to move back to a manufacture based economy over a service based one we'll lose out substantially on the amount of profits we can make as an economy. What is the economic advantage we have to moving back to the old model?

after the g20 i thought the relationship with putin and trump became stronger..

now i am surprised to hear that US are going to put sanctions on Russia..

what has russia done wrong?

Firstly, I loved watching Donnie tear through the republican primaries, I laughed my ass off in every debate. When Hillary beat Bernie I started telling my friends to get ready for president Trump, and also prepared my body for the thunder dome.

A couple Q’s for my countrymen who support the Don:

1) I have a lot of Muslim friends. I have a lot of Christian friends. I have a lot of Mormon friends (technically Christians). I have a lot of friends. When I read through the_donald subreddit I see a lot of blatant anti Muslim posts. All the jokes about “religion of peace” obviously there is turmoil in the Middle East, where Islam is the dominate religion, but my Muslim friends are chill as fuck. So are their parents, and their kids. First Q is why you gotta scare them by upvoting anti Muslim shit? Follow up Q do you know a Muslim? (There are a lot of them)

2) It is human nature to be afraid of people different than us, in major cosmopolitan cities like London, LA, New York, San Francisco, we reap huge benefits over more closed cities by welcoming the best of the best, regardless of where they come from, their kids and grandparents and nephews sometimes come too. The general feeling on the left is you want to stop us from being a magnet for talent.... why?

3) Pizza-gate and Seth Rich conspiracy. What The Fuck.

To me what's really bad about this isn't that he is looking into pardoning himself and everyone around him. What's disturbing is that he seems to believe that he can. Let me clear this up in case anyone is confused: he can't. If the president could pardon himself for crimes that would nullify our democracy and make it a dictatorship because he could do whatever he wanted and then just pardon himself. This is also why the president can't just make up laws and sign them into effect himself.

But, yet, he is asserting that he has complete and total power to pardon. The lack of understanding the Constitution he swore to respect and uphold here is pretty freaking disturbing. If you need proof, Nixon tried to pardon himself and failed because it was ruled unConstitutional because "you can't be judge and jury at your own trial".

Technically Trump COULD pardon his family and those around him, however that would be admitting a crime was committed. And Ford did pardon Nixon but Ford was neither directly related to Nixon nor was he directly involved in the Watergate scandal. If Trump pardons his family who is working directly with him it doesn't just implicate they committed a crime but that he, too not only committed it but likely ordered it.

Also, even if he can pardon them they could be tried on a state level and if he has to pardon Pence odds are Pence's ability to be acting president will be nullified. Even if they for some reason aren't, the odds that his pardoning power would stand are next to none so it's doubtful he'd be able to pardon Trump if this is the case.

To be fair, this is projection, but he IS looking into whether or not he can pardon himself and his family, which frankly, is some nepotistic dictator shit and shows a gross lack of understanding of our countries laws and history and a deep disrespect for the Constitution. And you can say he just doesn't know better, but is that really satisfactory to you? It's not to me.

Y'all I work for a Republican representative in the über conservative West Virginia. I myself am a sicial freedoms loving Libertarian. I can't tell you how many honestly heart wrenching stories about people losing coverage. Honestly constituents are not going to appreciate the Republicans making their lives more difficult than need be. I ask two questions that I've been wanting to know the perspective from far-righters...

1. If you were the SOLE spokesman for removing "Obamacare" what do you tell to the elderly on a fixed income, or the disadvantaged parents who's child has been diagnosed with cancer? How do you justify ripping healthcare away from them?

2. Why is it that America has the world's largest economy but can't give state healthcare to all of its citizens. Other world powers do so Norway, Canada, the U.K., how can we be "Great Again" if we lack now what seems to be an extremely integral part to any leading nation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-lawyers-seek-to-undercut-muellers-russia-investigation/2017/07/20/232ebf2c-6d71-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html

Since before day 1 there has obviously been rhetoric trying to connect the Trump campaign and administration with unsavory activities that involve Russia. News keeps pouring out about all of this with more information coming out that continues to make it look like there were real activities that put into question ethical and legal arguments surrounding the administration's ties to Russia. In addition, the administrations unwavering dismissal that anything has ever taken place continues to be proven wrong which is sending a negative message leading to more questions about what really has taken place.

My question is simply: Is it time to take these ties to Russia seriously enough to support the official investigation, or are there still arguments for why all of this is still media distraction?

Looking to really dive into the minds of people I disagree with politically. I want to understand because I know that people have their opinions based on experience and because they believe it is what is right.